Our first day

Well,

We're in Paris!

We arrived, into Charles de Gaulle airport around 1pm, and took a taxi into town to our Hotel, the Hotel de Gaulle, on Avenue George V, right next to the Four Seasons George V.

We had no plans really, other than to try to eat dinner at our favorite restaurant from our honeymoon, Le Languedoc, a small neighborhood bistro in the lower 5th arrondissement. Unfortunately, they were closed today, so the concierge recommended another place with a similar vibe: D'Chez Eux.

Having no plans, we decided just to walk a bit. We stopped at a cafe where Avenue George V meets La Seine, right on the edge of the right bank, with an unplanned yet perfect view of the Eiffel Tower. We had some coffee, hot chocolate and sparkling water to refresh ourselves and then took off walking East down the right bank quai.

We crossed over and stopped at the Musee d'Orsay to buy advance tickets for tomorrow (so we won't have to wait in line), then sort of strolled our way down into the Saint-Germain des Pres. I wanted to buy some dress shirts from this store, A Bon Marche, where I bought a shirt last time. I got a few.

We then went to the food market portion of the Bon Marche, a sort of Whole Foods on French Steroids (they had a foie gras *section*, go figure). Anyway, we bought some items (cheese, saucisson, wine) for a little picnic tomorrow, hopefully in the Tuilleries, before we hit the Musee d'Orsay.

It was about time for dinner so we walked on to D'Chez Eux, near the Hotel des Invalides for dinner. Just a little classic French neighborhood bistro, but the food and the service especially were spectacular, for not too much $$. Yeah sure, the other diners laughed at my French- but the waiters appreciated my efforts and went above and beyond to please us. Perfect.

After dinner we walked back to our hotel, but decided to have one last digestif at the George V next door. We sat right next to their bar's piano player. She was tremendous, mixing old jazz standards with Chopin effortlessly. As she went on break, I decided to see if they would throw me out for sitting at their Steinway. Apparently most Parisians (although most of the crowd at this Four Seasons were probably rich tourists) don't have much taste in music because they let me play for as long as I wanted, which was about 10 minutes. Now many of you know I can get by on the electric guitar. On piano I just fake it. Anyway, the piano player came back and we talked with her for a bit. I think she was happy just to have someone interested in her playing.

All in all, a great first day.

Will post some pictures tomorrow.

In a few days we move from the hotel into our house-swap in the Marais, the 3rd arrondissement.

My French is coming back to me pretty fast- if I could just get them to speak a little more slowly!

Brad